Festival Delle Radici - Stage Departures-Municipality of Castel di Tora

The Festival of Roots is an itinerant, innovative and sustainable project, aimed at celebrating local cultural traditions, promoting inclusion of resident communities and creating, in the year of Italian roots, a concrete and lasting embrace with foreign Italian communities.

Each stage brings with it the willingness to listen to the needs of the communities and offer solutions for sustainable local development. On October 19, the Municipality of Castel di Tora (RI) will host the stage of the Festival of Departures.

The initiative was born in 2016 as a cultural initiative of the AsSud Association of Paludi (CS) aimed at bringing together cultural actors, the scientific society and local authorities in order to promote and develop communities, using migration in a positive way, as an element of interpretation and knowledge.

The event will take place from 4 pm to 7.30 pm and will be divided into two moments: the Roots Workshops and a conference on Collective Memory with the return to the public of the performances of the workshops themselves.

From 10.30 to 13.00 the participatory workshop with the community “Roots of Song” will take place in the Council Chamber of the Municipality, curated by the artist Caterina Pontrandolfo.

The aim of the workshop is to repopulate significant places in historic centres such as squares, streets and crossroads with voices and songs. The focus is on songs of oral tradition, theater and community, with the intention of bringing to light the song of each country

“Roots of Song” will allow you to ideally reconstruct a way of the song of emigration, crossing different countries and evoking songs that have gone away and songs that have returned. This event represents an opportunity to rediscover and enhance the cultural and musical heritage of the communities involved.

In the afternoon, from 16.00 the laboratory rehearsals will be held while at 18.00 at the Gabriella Parca multipurpose room there will be the Conference and Discussion on collective memory articulated as follows:

• Workshop “Roots of Singing”
  • 16.00 – Curated by the artist Caterina Pontrandolfo
• Children as Trees: Bonds and Roots
  • 17.00 – Organized by the “Marco Polo” State Comprehensive Institute of Torricella in Sabina –
• “Rinaldo De Sanctis” State Kindergarten and Primary School of Colle di Tora
• Discussion on Collective Memory
• 17.30 – Greetings: Cesarina D’Alessandro Mayor of Castel di Tora;
• * Speakers: Sonia Fiorini Italea Lazio Ministry of Foreign Affairs Project – Maurizio Marchetti Lawyer and Expert in local history; Paolo Masini, President of the National Museum of Italian Emigration (MEI).
• * Launch of the “Questionnaire Italian Roots in the World” by Giuseppe
• Summary, Researcher at the Catholic University of Milan;
• * Let’s Give Voice to the Territories: Stories of Emigration and Resistance
• Economic & Sustainable Development – Glocal Travel Specialist Presentation
  • Curated by: Vincenzo Castaldo President of Glocal Think and Giuseppe Guarnera AICS Travel srl
• Final toast
• Return of the Workshop with Performance 19.00 – Curated by the artist Caterina Pontrandolfo and the community.

In collaboration with Ilaria Costa – Associazione Aps Giovanile Intreccio

The research project is part of a multi-year research path on Italian derivative communities suspended between historical emigration and new identity (Tutor: Prof. Gabriele Archetti) that the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart, through the Department of Modern and Contemporary History, has been carrying out since 2017.

The research includes an initial recognition of the Italians and their descendants who, while maintaining a strong link with their place of origin, have made and are making an important contribution to the construction of the places where they have taken root (the Americas, Australia, Europe, Central-Northern Italy).